Convera Launches New Product Platform To Integrate Web And Enterprise Search For Professionals

September 19, 2006; 03:17 AM

Convera Corporation , a leading provider of search technologies for professional workers, launched the TrueKnowledge Platform to meet the growing search needs of professionals worldwide. The platform applies Convera advanced search technologies to enterprise and Web environments, enabling individuals to access information both within their corporation and across the Internet in a single, consolidated view.

Through the unified TrueKnowledge Platform, Convera will deliver three solutions:

* Convera TrueKnowledge for Web - a hosted service that provides a customized search engine for content publishers serving professional markets. With the service, publishers can offer their target audiences access to both proprietary content and indexed Web information related to their industry – helping professionals quickly find precise information and offering advertisers a highly targeted audience.
* Convera TrueKnowledge for Discovery - a bundled hardware and software product deployed behind an organization’s firewall that enables them to search billions of internal documents as well as vast information on the Web. The offering provides advanced data mining features and supports third-party integration.
* Convera TrueKnowledge for Enterprise - a software-only enterprise search offering with the ability to incorporate selected Web content. The offering combines the essential features of Convera RetrievalWare® with the advanced functionality of the TrueKnowledge Platform.

Convera has reported that a U.S. Federal Government Agency has accepted the first phase of a $1.5 million contract for TrueKnowledge for Discovery. The agency plans to migrate its applications built on Convera RetrievalWare software to a new massively scalable platform for data mining, visualization, analytics and discovery.

Convera has also reported multiple contracts for its TrueKnowledge for Web service. United Business Media plc is using the service to create SearchMedica, a professional search service aimed at communities of healthcare professionals. A three-year agreement with All In One Solution (AIOSL), Inc., a Tokyo-based systems integrator and Web hosting firm, will produce an Internet search portal for healthcare and entertainment markets in Japan, the world’s third largest market in terms of overall online access. Additionally, Convera has signed contracts with CNET and Institutional Investor to deliver TrueKnowledge for Web.

"TrueKnowledge Platform represents the only unified search solution designed exclusively for professionals and the organizations that serve them," said Kurt Gastrock, Convera chief operating officer. "The initial contracts for our Web and Discovery products demonstrate that our company’s stated vision for advanced professional search has already gained critical market acceptance."

Currently professionals are limited in their ability to find what they are looking for because Web search technologies have been primarily designed for a consumer audience, and enterprise search technologies have been limited principally to retrieving data behind the corporate firewall.

Recent studies reveal that professionals increasingly turn to the Web for vital information, yet are often dissatisfied with search results.

* Only 17 percent of Internet users say they always find what they are looking for when they use a search engine, according to the 2005 Pew Internet and American Life Project report.
* An August 2006 study by Outsell reveals that the Internet search failure rate for professionals is 31.9 percent. In addition, the time professionals devote to information tasks now averages 12 hours per week.

Convera is currently making TrueKnowledge for Discovery available to RetrievalWare customers who have large-scale and mixed enterprise and Web search needs. Convera has also established a migration path to TrueKnowledge for Enterprise following the delivery of RetrievalWare 8.2 in the third quarter of this fiscal year.

Both TrueKnowledge for Discovery and TrueKnowledge for Enterprise will support RetrievalWare intellectual property. Stored queries, profiles and taxonomies built and deployed on RetrievalWare will be easily migrated to the new platform while providing increased precision, scalability and performance. Convera customers under maintenance contracts will be upgraded to the TrueKnowledge for Enterprise software solution at no additional expense. Optional functionality delivered as part of TrueKnowledge for Enterprise will carry an additional cost.

"RetrievalWare users will benefit dramatically from the new capabilities offered through TrueKnowledge Platform," said Gastrock. "As our customers face the massive content explosion both within the enterprise and across the Web, Convera is prepared to meet unprecedented user needs."

TrueKnowledge for Web and TrueKnowledge for Discovery are available immediately. Convera plans to release TrueKnowledge for Enterprise in 2007.
About Convera

Convera is a leading provider of search technologies to commercial enterprises and government agencies. Through its product offerings, Excalibur, a newly developed Web search solution and RetrievalWare, its enterprise search product, Convera offers unique search technology capable of providing an integrated results page derived from both intranet and Internet content. Convera's technologies manage vast stores of structured and unstructured information that exist within internal repositories and on the Web by providing highly scalable, fast, accurate and secure search capabilities across text, video, image and audio information, in multiple languages. More than 900 customers in 40 countries rely on Convera search solutions to power a broad range of mission-critical applications. www.convera.com